On a whim I went to the UW game against Northern Arizona today. NAU's coach is former Husky great Loree Payne, cool to see her at Hec Ed again. They had a nice tribute to her before the game. Low scoring ugly first half, UW led 29-21. NAU was pesky but finally end of Q3 UW started getting separation, ending up winning by 20+. Scored 52 points in the second half, and that was with only hitting 4 from behind the arc (4-16). Forced a bunch of turnovers, but gave the ball right back even more. Too generous of them. Many of UW's TOs were unforced and of the bonehead variety, gotta clean that up. It became very evident that Wynn wasn't able to coach the way she wanted to most of last year, just not enough healthy bodies (only 7 players suited up for games by the end of the year). Today it was lots of full court pressing and trapping, and multiple subs at nearly every dead ball. Mixed up zone and man to man defense but extended pressure well out to the perimeter either way. Melgoza had a strong game, 20 points 10 rebounds 8 assists. Her first career double-double and barely missed a triple double. There are some strong rebounding guards in the Pac 12. 5 Huskies in double figure scoring, I'm not sure that ever happened last year. The 2 freshmen look like ballers. Van Dyke struggled with her shot but she's got a good feel for the game. Watkins looked good too. There's nowhere to go but up after last year. They'll still be in the lower half of the Pac but I'm hopeful there will be some significant improvement this year.